If you wanna hear it, ask me....if you can handle the truth......read it.....if you can't take the heat, by all means get out of the kitchen and WHATEVER you do.....don't disturb my gruuv!!
Carry on......

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

So, I have been sitting at home, fighting getting depressed over my lack of work. And getting AWFULLY fuckin TIRED of LOOKING for another job. I hate this shit. I have had 3 phone interviews (2 for the same company) and now I am just waiting……waiting……. The shit’s depressing. I really don’t like to constantly talk about it to my husband because at a certain point I can feel his thoughts of “well, I am here for you, but there is nothing else I can say”, yet I want him to say SOMETHING. But what can he say? The same thing over and over? “It’s gonna be O.K.”? Yeah, I guess. But that becomes trite at a point.

Truth is, there is NOTHING save another job that will make me feel like anything I did 4 weeks ago. And the kicker is that I have NOT been just “chilling” in it’s entirety. I have been doing shit, going places, applying for jobs……and some chilling  I take my son to daycare (which because I am still getting paid, I am blessed enough to still be able to take him to) in the morning now. My husband used to take him and I would pick him up. The good thing is that I can now spend some time (that I USED to not have) in the morning with him. When I am working I am usually in the bed until THEE last possible moment upon which I HAVE to get OUT of the bed, so mornings were RRRRRRRRRRUSHED and like a race to the finish line , to say the least. Every morning, if there was one thing that would put the routine even 5 minutes behind, it was a problem. (neither me or my husband particularly LIKE getting up and out in the mornings). So now…… I have time to take my time with my little one. He used to be at daycare between 7:15 and 7:40 and now we take our time, we watch a little Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer together and get there between 8:45 and 9:15. Nice. I had been wanting to be able to have this kinda leisurely routine with my child for the longest. In a perfect world, I would be able to take him to daycare and arrive at work when I wanted to (around 10:00 am) and then leave at around 4:30 to get him. Doesn’t that sound perfect???? Well, I gues that’s what I have kinda-sorta until my severance runs out at the end of December (if I have not found a job ). So, I am thankful that I get to spend these mornings snuggled in the bed with him and spend more time with him, just him and mommy.

But the thought of “when the hell am I going to find a job” still looms over my every thought. I know and BELIEVE that I will get another job, but the “when” is an issue. Unemployment doesn’t even cover HALF of what I used to make in a month. But it’s better than nothing , so again, I am blessed.

A friend of mine said “ girl you better ENJOY this time off….you’ll be back to work and WISHING for this time!”. And I know she is right. But I cannot enjoy this because you see, I am a worrier by NATURE. It is as ingrained into my soul as the dirt to the earth. It is what it is. I wish I wasn’t, but until I HAVE a job in hand, I cannot REST or relax. So, even though I may do some enjoyable things and have free time to myself (more than I ever have since the birth of my little one), I cannot fully enjoy it cause I am so damn worried about finding a job! I try to….. I try to .

Fear of a new job

I also hate the whole “new job” thing too. I hate being the new person, trying to figure out who’s cool and who’s the asshole, what is acceptable and what rules can and can’t be broken. I HAAAAAAATE going to new jobs! So, I have that angst too. I guess you all are saying “worry about that ONCE you GET a job”., but I told you all…. I am a worrier, so I am worrying NOW thank you very much. I tend to be the “let’s look at the worst case scenario” type of person, because I have seen too much bullshit and to much “wrong” stuff in these jobs not to. So, I usually go IN with a “umm-hmm……what’s YOUR deal” type of skepticism. Being the new person is never fun and I haven’t had to do it in a long time. I am not looking forward to being that person. **sigh** I guess that very scenario is what kept me in that last job.

So these are the things that I sit and think about when I am at home….thinking, thinking, thinking…….

My husband said that he heard form someone that when people experience a loss they go through stages with the acronym S.A.R.A.H, which stands for Sadness, Anger, Rage, Acceptance and Hope. You know what? I oscillate the MOST between the Anger and Rage about the whole thing. I am STILL very angry that this was done to ME. I mean, I have some acceptance (becuase I have to....after all I can't go to the building and cling to the door begging to be let in) and some (a little bit) of hope. But it's frustrating anc scary because when you come down to it, NO ONE can "get" me a new job, but me.....it's all up to me and being PLACED into this situation , without choice is what throws me RIGHT.BACK into the anger/rage place. Now, I don't mean anger in terms of throwing shit at the walls, but just an internal, occsaional seething. And now is the time when I have to be the most "bubbly" and "personable" (because you need to "impress" people with how nice you are, or at least fake it WELL )when I feel the LEAST like being bothered with people or being all "suzie cream cheesy happy" !!!

So, as I go on and keep looking for a job, I try to be less of the AR and more of the AH in that acronym. But it's hard some days.

But for me....the kicker is that MOST people feel that took a poll feel that his apology is enough. Let's talk about this. In reality, I suppose that the apology HAS.TO.BE enough. Follow me now..... what else should he do? He already sounded like a FUCKIN BUFFOON babbling on and on and digressing and rambling (since he didn't know WHAT THE FUCK to say.....dosn't he have a publicist that coulda scripted something BETTER than THAT???). He shoulda just apologized and been done instead of rambling and making himself sound WORSE and LESS credible than he already WAS, because the TRUTH is what people really seek and ya'll ain't NEVER gon hear that!!! LOL That and an answer as to WHY he said it. But does it really change anything to know WHY? No. Cause you'll NEVER hear him say "Well, the truth is that I really don't like blacks and I really DO consider them to be niggers. DO you think THAT truth will ever come "firing out" of him???

But anyway.... what? He should do community service? He should do jail time? Should he should apologize to children in schools? Should he should go to prisons and apologize? He should be forced to go to labor camp? No. If that's the case I should do community service or jail time for my belief that most white folks get over on black folks on an EVERYDAY basis. **shrug**.

No, none of that matters. Because his BELIEF is what matters. WHY is there some "hate", why is there some "rage" that was even there to come out????? And then he throws the all-encompassing apologetic "I am not a racist.....I don't even know WHERE it came from". That's like me birthing a litter of puppies and saying..... I din't fuck no dogs..... whereDID they come from???????

Again........Whatever jackass. So, I suppose in reality an apology HAS to be enough because you and I BOTH knowe that we will NOT change the BASIS of those comments. So, just apologize Kramer and donm't be surprised if yo ass get's NO love from a whole bunch a people.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Hey folks, what’s good? Well, since we last talked, I STILL haven’t found a job (not surprising with Michigan’s HIGH ASS unemployment rate!) I HAVE applied to a zillion and one places but have only had two phone interviews from Home Depot who was supposed to be calling me back for a “real” face to face interview and they have YET to do so. But I also know that many times it takes HR dept’s up to a month later to call folks back…..remember, I WORKED in HR, so I know….I just HATE being on THIS side of the fence!

So, I plug on and have been trying to find a job and this is what I dreaded MOST….the CONSTANT pressure and irritation of TRYING to find a job! It’s exhausting. Finding a job IS a job! Since I have been off, I have caught up on a few blogs though that’s a good thing !

My family is home with me this week (took the baby out of daycare because we’d have to pay for 5 days and they’d only have to work for 3 due to Thanksgiving, so we decided to keep him home this week. And my husband took Mon-Wed off too). So, I have a little company this week! I have a phone interview for a Regional HR Manager position with a company in the city that I live in which is GREAT and hopefully more potential jobs will come through.

But get this ya’ll: You know that since I was terminated and didn’t quit, I AM eligible for unemployment right? Well, why was one of my friends telling me “you know that if you are OFFERED a job that if you do NOT take it that the State of Michigan WILL cut your unemployment off, right?”

Hold up? S’cuse me?

I said, “nooooooooooo…..so…..if I get offered a BULLSHIT ass job, I am OBLIGATED to take it???? How would they KNOW if I don’t? How do they find out? How in the fuck is that shit reported?”

I had a plethora of questions because not ONCE in my TEN YEARS in HR have I EVER even SEEN a reporting format to REPORT to the State when I only OFFERED someone a job! How would they even KNOW that I had had an interview with the damn company????? I asked several other people and they seemed to confirm what my first friend had said, but they didn’t have answers to my “how the fuck would they know?” questions either. I am disturbed. So, I go to the handy-dandy Unemployment Booklet that was sent to me when I applied for unemployment and it said:

In short.......“You will be disqualified….if you refuse a REASONABLE offer of employment…..reasonable is determined to be any position that pays 70% or more of what you previously made.”

WHAT IN THE FUCK?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am NOT taking a job that pays THIRTY PERCENT LESS than what I MADE just to say that I have taken a job and gotten off of their system!!!!!!!!! That’s what they are there for!!! BITCHES!!!!!!!!! DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL! That is purely and simply fucked up!

I still will take my chances. I am not about to accept some dumb ass job that pays that much LESS, and I don’t even LIKE the job. No.

So, anyway….. my girl that I used to work with had a baby over the weekend. There has been much to say about her that I simply haven’t because the story is so long. But the long and short of it is that since she was fired on November 18, 2005, she has gone DOWN into the gutter and her family (who were already a bunch a gutter rats) have been oh-so-happy to goad her down that road. She was always the best achiever in the family and supported many of them in different ways and her pre-adolescent child on a meager 30-some thousand dollar salary. She had TWO houses (one she rented out) , a new car, always was “appearance-wise” , together and now…….well, let’s just say that when I talked to her sister because LITERALLY over the past year, I have spoken to her when she NEEDED SOMETHING and that may have been all of less than 10 times, her sister told me that the nigga that she has been fucking with who she SWEEEEEEARS she is gonna leave, had her strung out on “51” cigarettes (assumingly WHILE she was pregnant, per the sister). What is a “51”? It is weed laced with CRACK. Did ya’ll hear me?

CRACK!!!!

Even though she was from that environment, she always proclaimed to loathe it. I mean, she’s beautiful (no for real….every time we went ANYPLACE, men were ALL OVER HER…..very pretty girl) And now she has fallen so far. I personally think that she had a breakdown. A real mental breakdown. When I finally talked to her after she moved to Atlanta , stayed in shelters, in her van with her 13 year old kid, her 16 year old nephew, this nigga and her big ass Rottweiler dog, and came BACK (all while pregnant mind you), she told me that she wanted to be through with him and after the baby was born that she was done. Yeah o.k. chick, tell it to someone who might believe you. So I asked her did she have any idea what the baby was. Her response? “ I haven’t really had any prenatal care”. WHAT???? WHY???? (at the time I knew nothing of the “51’s”) . So she hadn’t even BEEN to the OB/GYN during her WHOLLLLLLLE pregnancy. Now I see why. She didn’t want them to find CRACK in her system!

Anyway……. I had some items that I said (to myself) that if the State's Child Protective Services didn’t TAKE the baby away from her, I would give her. She called me on Thursday and told me that she was in the hospital and that she was about to have the baby. I told her that I was going to come see her. She told me that the baby was a boy (they’d done an ultrasound). She had the baby on Friday, 7lbs 12 oz. and she is going to aptly name him Chance. Cause this IS her chance to get OUT OF this pattern, this IS her chance to get this together. I have no idea if she will. I hope so. I gave her lots of stuff that I was saving in case I (hopefully) have another child. But she needs it more than I do. Well, they didn’t take the baby so the baby MUST have been O.K. and she MUST have stopped doing drugs (if that was the case….remember, this was per her sister…).

I really fear for that little baby. He’s being born into terrible circumstances. But I do believe that she was doing drugs previously…...even though the baby seems fine.....she has fallen too far and has hit rock bottom. She didn’t even have a car seat to take the baby home (which they will NOT let you leave without), so she had to call her brother (also a non-working procreator) to get his baby’s mama’s infant car seat (he has a 1 year old). Sad……..She recently got Welfare assistance, so she has some way to get food,etc for her self. But the nigga who as far as I am concerned is THEE problem, was/is still present. I am so sad that she had a baby by HIS ass of all people! He is older than me (he’s like 37) and has the mentality and work ethic of a 10 year old and I am not being facetious. I.E….he doesn’t work, he sits around up under her all day watching cartoons (literally ya'll) and he is just an ignorant ass. What kept her? Hear her tell it “The dick is the biggest and BEST that I’ve ever had ….”…..whatever….the dick ain’t worth your life. All I can do is pray.

So, the culmination of all of this is that I went to see the baby and the baby looks great! I was so surprised and so happy. Cute as little newborns go ( you know…they all look like Chinese babies for the most part). But he looks to be healthy and was a great weight! I held him for awhile and said a silent prayer for him

On Sunday, I went to Breakfast with Zed at Detroit’s Breakfast House . If you ever come to Detroit or live here, you NEED to experience this place! Great ambiance, and even BETTER food with excellent service! It’s nice to see a good eatery in the Metro Detroit area. Cause they’re limited IN the city. Now the suburbs……. Plenty of good eateries, but Detroit proper, not so much. Usually the service is HORRIBLE and the staff is ghetto. Sorry….but most of the places inside the city limits simply are….(there are exceptions of course).

So, Me & Zed talked reminisced and had a great time. Me & Zed used to go out alllllllllll the time, pre-husband. But it seems like when I got married all my male friends took the “out of respect of your husband” thing TOOO FAR! And I have MOSTLY male friends! I mean, them nigro’s simply STOPPED calling me! So, it was GREAT to just dine amongst a real friend who know’s you and who you’ve been wanting to reconnect with. We both had the fried chicken and waffles with the side of cheese grits. Good times ya'll....good times......DAMMIT I’m hungry right now!

Then last night my girl Lanee and her hubby, who moved to Richmond, VA last year, were in town for one of Lanee’s close soror’s Engagement Party. So they stopped over and visited with me and Dylan last night. It was soooo good to see her and I really realize how I miss my friends (Zed and Lanee) who moved away. I will probably not see her until next year sometime, so I am glad that I had the chance to see her while she was in town!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Well, in my last post I said that there were a lot of things going on and there have been. In short, I was laid off, fired, let go…..all it boils down to is I no longer have a job or source of income. Why? Well, the company that I worked for has been cutting it’s own asshole to save money since July when the contract with GM was renewed. And my job (no one else's mind you) was eliminated.

Prior to the contract being renewed I was told by my stankin ass boss “I would advise you to get your resume together over the shutdown because NONE of us could be employed if we don’t get the contract….I know that I am getting MY resume together”. Now those of you reading this who have been reading for awhile may be like “COOL! You haaaaaaaaaated that place and that woman ANYWAY! Now you can move on to something better”. While that may be true, I did NOT want to be FORCED to move and have NO WARNING that I was going to be without INCOME. You see, that was all that job was to me ANYWAY: Income. It wasn’t a “career” because the bitch I reported to held you back and DIDN’T want to teach you anything. It wasn’t a source of pride, she saw to that, but what is WAS , was a way for my family to live comfortably in the style in which I AM accustomed because it did pay well and have GREAT perks. Now, I am scrambling and uneasy about where’s my next money coming from. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me, but the last time I was given the courtesy of being told 2 ½ months in advance, that my job was going to be eliminated. That bitch could have done the same, because I talked to one of my girls that works in another division and she said that when it all came out, that this was “planned for a MINUTE”. Hmmph…. Why should I be surprised. That is what that company does best….FUCK people in the ass. I was there for 5 years and got a paltry 7 weeks severance. Now, some of you will say “stop fucking complaining, you coulda got NATHAN, NADA….”. And to you all, I say true, but I have seen muuuch better……

Anyway………

And unfortunately, me & my husband do not have the “3-6 months of income” that financial advisers tell you to have in “case” something like this happens {and PLEASE don’t; give me a lecture on THAT…don’t need it} So…. I am REALLY pressed to get a job because I do NOT want my lifestyle to change from what it is now. What do I mean by that? My husband DOES make enough to support us, and with a few changes (him claiming more exemptions, cutting down on what he puts into his 401(k), not spending unnecessarily, and taking our child out of daycare) we would survive. So, it’s NOT like I will be homeless. But that is also NOT how I live: not able to spend ANYTHING, asking for an “allowance” , or being a stay at home mom (nothing against ANYONE who does it because I think that it is faaaaaaaar harder to stay at HOME ALL.DAY.EVERY.DAY.AND.WEEKENDS.AND.BE.WITH.CHILDREN.24/7. 365 than me going to work everyday and I know my limitations. I love my child, but I would be a WORSE mother if I was forced to stay home everyday with him….. sorry….I just would). So I am pressed. I know that I WILL find another job, but when is the question. In case ya’ll DIDN’T know, Michigan has the 2nd HIGHEST unemployment rate in the country and since proposal 2 passed and they are CUTTING more jobs (no pun intended) everyday!! So, who KNOWWWWWS “when” I will get another job! I am still very upset by this and by the fact that that bitch I worked for for allthese years didn’t have the commom decency to let me know, send a smoke signal, SOMETHING to let me know (when I KNOW she knew) that this shit was coming!!

I also want to make the right decision in terms of a job because I have now had two unpleasant job situations/bosses (this one and the one IMMEDIATELY before) and those who don’t know me might say “maybe YOU were the problem if you had TWO bosses who gave you problems”. Well, boys and girls, those that know me KNOW that that was simply NOT the case. I have worked for two bastards in a row, spanning a total of 7 miserable years of my approximately 10 total years IN HR !!! So, I am verrrry hesitant to jump into a job that doesn’t feel right. I intend to “interview them” more than I have previously. The good thing is that me & my brother & sister are about to sell my grandmother’s ( who passed) house and the proceeds will give me some cushion along with unemployment.

I am just now starting to get myself back up and feeling even 1/2way alright since it happened last Thursday. Since then I have been pretty depressed and not feeling good at all. I still have my moments.

I do however know that the silver lining in this whole thing is the fact that I DO.NO.HAVE to be bothered with that BITCH .EVER.AGAIN. But back to the actual termination. Check how they did me: My boss had me meet her at one of the companies satellite offices to tell me. What? Did she think that I was going to be an angry black bitch and take her fucking HEAD off in the office?????? **laughing**Yes, she shoulda, cuz she knew that she and I did NOT have the friendliest relationship when it came to ill shit that she has done to me and THIS would fall in that category, no? We both were fake and I guess she should have been worried. She knew that I didn’t like her. From the beginning I should have peeped her fakeness for what it was, but it wasn’t until she showed her true colors after I was hired that I began to see. And she and I have gotten “INTO.IT” on more than one occasion. Working for her these past 5 years has been HELL, emotionally. I have walked out of her office on several occasions, we have gotten into straight yelling matches (the most recent one a couple of months ago, in which she says, among other shit, “Robyn I have had it up to here (motioning with her hand above her head)” and I said “Well you know WHAT ____ I have had it up to here (said with a stank ass look on my face) TOO !”. And I have had to literally walk away more times than I can count to clear my head” because if I didn’t, I feared I would seriously end up in jail for what I wanted to do to that woman.

But what’s really fucked up to me is that I wasn’t let go for performance, attendance, insubordination, yet I didn’t even get a chance to clean out my OWN DESK!!!! Fucked up huh? Well, it would have been MORE fucked up if I hadn’t been up on her shitty assed plan the two days before. How did I know? The week before she had told me to “plan to meet her” at our satellite office and I was like yeah, yeah..o.k…. not really paying attention to her because she babbles so much, just making my mental note and moving on. Well… a couple days before she mentioned it again, which then made me ask “by the way , WHAT are we going there for???”. She replies “ I can’t say”.DING! DING! DING! RING THE ALARM

What the fuck?? I immediately got MORE paranoid than I already was. That didn’t sound right but me being a natural “worrier” I tried to calm my mind and TRIED not to make too much out of it, but still started thinking “what if I am being fired….”.

So, fast forward to Halloween Day. Well, I went to use my Corporate American Express card and it was declined, so I call them up and they inform me “a request was made from your company to cancel this card”. I just bust out crying right then and there in the parking lot of my son’s school because it hit me that these dirty muthafucka’s were going to terminate me. I couldn’t even get it together. My husband was on his way home anyway and he had to come and meet me there and go in and get my son because I was so fucked up. So, the next day (which was the day before I was let go), I cleaned out every file, copied shit to disk that I wanted, took shit that was mine, forwarded myself e-mails that I wanted to keep, and generally made sure I had what “I needed” from my desk. So, fuck her stankin ass, because the only thing left to pack were pictures, mugs, and miscellaneous food. But that was really fucked up. We’ve worked together for FIVE years. You know that I have a husband and a child, it’s RIGHT before the holidays and OBVIOUSLY this shit was WWAAAAAAAAY planned in advance and you couldn’t have given me a “hint” that this shit was COMING?????? Ask her and she will give you the bullshit goody-goody answer I am sure of “ well, Robyn I was sworn to secrecy by MY superiors…..blah-fucking-blah”. Whatever. If you really GAVE a shit about me (like you allllllllllways FAKE LIKE YOU DO) allllllllllllllllllll these years…. You coulda HINTED something like “you know….. our HR jobs are NOT secure, so make sure you are prepared for anything…..” or something of the like. If I gave a shit about a person, I would do that for someone. You know, tell them without TELLING THEM !

I am also scared about trying to get a new job. Since I have not been “on an interview” in 5 years, I am terrified. I hate interviews because I get soooo nervous when I am put on the spot, feel like I am sounding stupid and lose all train of thought usually. And to be honest, it’s been longer than that since I went on a real interview. When I interviewed for this job I was ready and I focused on doing the BEST I could in that interview and it was a cake walk. My soon to be boss talked MORE THAN I DID in the fucking interview! I was sooo relieved! But I know that that is not how MOST interviews are……. But I will survive. I have to.

So on the day I got fired, I had a hair appt. and decided to bring my “sexy back”…… see below…..

I had been talking about cutting my hair for at LEAST a year, and always got scared. This was just the impetus that I needed to get me to do it and you know what. Like this job, I do not miss the hair ONE.BIT. Everything happens for reason right? Wish me luck on this new journey into the next part of my life.

So whaddaya think of the new look? Cute, no? (ya’ll betta say YES…ya’ll know I am fragile right now….LOL)

Sunday, November 05, 2006

I know that I am late as hell in posting these pics from Halloween, but I have had alot going on later (more on this in a couple days or so...)..But anyway... halloween was good for the little one, we went to the party that a local church has and that my college buddy (and neighbor) goes to.

He had soooo much fun and this lil boy LOOOOVES being around other kids, so he was in HEAVEN. I also liked the fact that the church does not give out oo-gobs and oo-gobs of candy. They give out a bag to each child which is JUST enough for them to get a DAMN GOOD Sugar high!!! LOL

Here's the pics!

He also went to a halloween party that this little girl's mom that he used to go to his old daycare with had. Here are a few pics from that party.......